Here is an update about recent HoLLT.net activities for network members and others interested . Please send the link to this post to others you think might be interested in joining HoLLT.net via our website: https://www.hollt.net/.

New logo

Many thanks to Marco Pizzo for designing our new logo (above).

Three research questions currently being pursued in the HoLLT.net community:

1) What does historical research tell us about innovation in the field of language learning and teaching? (This was the topic of our AILA 2017 symposium – abstracts available via https://www.hollt.net/events; papers will begin to be prepared for publication in book form soon.)

2) What bilingual and multilingual phenomena have been evident in the history of language learning and teaching? (This was the topic of our 2018 international meeting at the University of Reading – abstracts available via https://www.hollt.net/events; papers are currently being prepared for publication as a special issue of the journal Language & History.)

3) How do grounded histories / histories of practice counteract received notions about language learning and teaching? (This will be the topic of our 14–15 November 2019 meeting at the University of Bremen. The call for papers has just been announced.

Publication

Autumn 2018 saw the long-awaited publication of a set of three volumes with the overall title The History of Language Learning and Teaching (Vol. I: 16th-18th Century Europe; Vol. II: 19th-20th Century Europe; Vol. III: Across Cultures). Edited by Nicola McLelland and Richard Smith and published by Legenda (Oxford) for the Modern Humanities Research Association, these volumes bring together current research in Europe and beyond and provide the first overview of research in the developing field of HoLLT. Volume I presents the history of how languages were learnt and taught across Europe, from Russia and Scandinavia to the Iberian peninsula, up to about 1800. Case studies deal with the teaching and learning of French, Italian, German and Portuguese, as well as Latin, still the first 'foreign language' for many learners in Europe in this period. Volume II presents case studies from the period when modern languages became established in school curricula and modern language teaching became professionalized in Europe. The chapters consider 19th-century innovations , including the Reform Movement and its precursors, as well as developments in policy and practice in the 20th century. Part I of Volume III (‘The Place of Culture in Language Teaching’) examines the history of how 'other cultures' have been presented to learners in language classrooms and language materials. Part II (‘Beyond Europe’) presents studies of the history of language learning and teaching beyond Europe, including the Middle East, China, Japan, India and New Zealand.

The network is bringing together scholars from different language traditions and different periods of specialisation, as well as with interests in different geographical locations and with different disciplinary backgrounds, within a new plurilingual, multicultural, interdisciplinary space. Interactions between European and Brazilian scholars were particularly noticeable at the 2017 AILA Congress in Rio de Janeiro, while HoLLT.net’s July 2018 event in Reading, UK, was remarkable for the extended time range covered by papers, from Ancient Egypt to late-twentieth-century Britain. At both events, neglected colonial histories of language teaching have begun to form an important part of overall HoLLT.net concerns.

'Valorizing practice: Grounded histories of language learning and teaching'. HoLLTnet international meeting, University of Bremen, Germany, 14–15 November 2019.

Our symposium at the AILA Congress, Groningen, Netherlands, 9–14 August 2020, will probably have the theme 'Women in the History of Language Learning and Teaching'' The call for papers will be issued in 2019.